Rafferty's Revenge
by i-must-go-first
Summary: The aftermath of the 2011 Excellence in Policing Gala, or, How Gerry Standing Stopped Smoking Yet Again. Sandra issues an ultimatum, Gerry has disturbing dreams, and Rafferty gets his revenge, sort of. Oh, and honeycomb pieces! Set during series seven.
1. The Ultimatum

_Author's note: So I'm posting this now in order to cheer myself, and potentially some of you, up after the latest, heaviest installment of "Knowing Better." And lest you think I have no life, given that I have three stories on the go simultaneously, well, I don't. Plus traveling solo for a few months gives you a lot of time for writing. _

_On to part one, featuring full-figured burlesque dancers, nicotine deprivation, a Jungian playground in the form of Gerry's dreamscape, and honeycomb pieces. Also, I hope, some laughs._

**Rafferty's Revenge**

**Part One: The Ultimatum**

**February 2011**

"Five thousand quid?" Gerry Standing squawked, his light eyes bugging out to an alarming degree. "For a rubbish bin? Was it made of solid gold and cleverly covered over to _look_ like a hunk of plastic?"

"Five thousand quid for the rubbish bin plus smoke and water damage, and what's listed here as 'miscellaneous damage.'" Sandra Pullman's humorless gaze zeroed in on Gerry as she transferred it from the sheaf of papers clutched in her left hand. "Apparently that last item pertains to the conveyor belt, but I'm sure you don't know anything about that either." She delivered this piece of information in the flat, clipped tone that told her colleagues she was too angry to shout – never a good sign. "Gerry, was Brian involved in this at all?"

Brian's trainers shuffled against the floor, but before he could speak up out of the misguided desire to help his friend out of hot water by the expedient of boiling with him, Gerry said, "Absolutely not. He was in the toilet, as a matter of fact."

"Too many chocolates," Brian admitted reluctantly, shamefaced.

"What, only chocolates, no honeycomb pieces?" Sandra dumped the papers in Gerry's lap, where one affixed itself to his hot buttered crumpet. "You'll have to make a statement, but the Met has agreed to settle out of court. The amount will, of course, be deducted from the UCOS budget, which means it comes right out of your salary. Congratulations."

Gerry gulped as he averted his eyes to peel page 6 sub-C off his breakfast. Fan-frickin'-tastic. At least she hadn't said anything about giving him the sack. The chocolate factory incident had taken place months ago, and he'd congratulated himself on having escaped unscathed. He'd forgotten that the wheels of insurance companies ground even more slowly than the wheels of justice.

Suddenly two livid, very determined electric blue eyes insinuated themselves directly into his line of sight as Sandra bent at the waist to bring her face level with Gerry's. It was like meeting the gaze of a king, or in this case queen, cobra: potentially fatal, but interesting nonetheless. "In the meantime, you're being issued an ultimatum."

Oh, shit, he'd known he was getting off too easily. "From Strickland?" he asked with as much dignity as he could muster.

"No, worse."

"All the way from the top man?" Jack asked, wincing, from his position near the marker board, where he'd frozen when Sandra had charged through the double doors like a detective superintendent scorned.

Sandra slowly returned to her full height, never allowing Gerry's gaze to deviate from hers. "No, Jack, much worse than that."

Oh, shitting sodding _shit_.

Brian cringed with terror, making himself look uncannily like a constipated gargoyle.

"From me," Sandra explained very softly, saying what Gerry had already guessed. "Gerry, for your own health and for the fiscal health of this unit, you have got to stop smoking."

"Or what, you'll fire me?" Gerry demanded, crossing his arms and letting the legal documents cascade to the floor, where they landed between his highly-polished loafers. "You can't do that. It's a violation of my civil rights." He permitted himself a grim smirk.

"Oh, I didn't say I'd sack you." Sandra's smile perfectly matched his. "I was thinking more along the lines of desk duty. _Permanent_ desk duty."

"You can't do that," Gerry argued, beginning to feel a tingle of panic at the distinct possibility that she not only could, but would. "I passed me physical."

Sandra's perfect smile widened, amping up the evilness quotient by approximately 275%. "So I'll give you another physical, and I guarantee you'll fail this one."

Gerry felt a shiver run down his spine, but he wasn't sure whether it was due to the thought of being forced to leave off the habit of a lifetime or of his governor giving him a physical.

Sandra fisted one hand against her hip. "Where are your fags?" she asked, all business, extending her other hand palm-up.

Gerry stared at her for a full thirty seconds, but it was a contest he was doomed to lose. He fished in his blazer pocket for the slightly crumpled soft pack of Marlboros and slapped them into her waiting palm.

"The second pack too," she specified, her glare holding him captive.

Sod it. Gerry envisioned a twenty-pound note going up in a puff of smoke as he handed over the spare pack he kept in his overcoat.

"And the ones in your desk."

Bloody hell, was a man allowed no dignity?

"Excellent." Sandra threw all three packs into the bin, where they landed with a disheartening cellophane crinkle. Her eyes flashed dangerously. "Welcome to the non-smoking world, Gerry."

2.

**Two weeks later: March 2011, the Monday following the fateful Excellence in Policing Gala as chronicled in Rafferty Returns.**

"It's a good job Madame's not makin' you foot the bill for _all_ the damage you caused Friday night at the gala," Jack commented with fiendish amusement, regarding his friend from above the front page of the morning's Telegraph. "You'd never see a pay check again between that and the candy factory fiasco."

Brian chuckled gleefully in the direction of his computer monitor, but Gerry only stretched his arms above his head, seemingly to better exhibit his cobalt and lavender tie, and smiled beatifically, even more self-satisfied than usual.

"How much did that frock set you back?" Jack asked.

"She said she'd bring me a bill."

"And she did," Sandra confirmed, bustling in with a chocolate croissant in one hand. She plopped it down on Gerry's desk as she shrugged out of her light grey jacket, but turned back in time to slap his hand when he reached for a piece.

"Good morning, guv'nor," Gerry greeted her benignly, the cheeky chappy at his most charming.

She fixed him speculatively through narrowed feline eyes. "Is it?" she murmured, and then resumed her normal volume. "Monday morning, boys. Shop's open. I need everything you've got on the Colson investigation by noon, but don't bother typing up the reports. Gerry will be happy to do that."

"Thrilled," he affirmed stoically.

"Merely a taste of things to come if you so much look sideways at a cigarette," Sandra assured him smugly. "An amuse bouche, if you will."

"I'm not bleedin' smoking," Gerry growled through clenched teeth, his good humour no match for this onslaught.

Sandra actually leaned down and sniffed him, and Gerry's eyes flared. "Good. Keep it that way. Or else."

No, Gerry hadn't been smoking. He was in enough trouble after the show he'd put on Friday night for the benefit of the entire Met.

But when he woke up in the pre-dawn hours of Tuesday morning, he sure as hell wished he had.

His lungs were going to burst with the strain of dragging air into his body, but there was something wrong, because no matter how much he sucked in he couldn't breathe, and he was light-headed from lack of oxygen and the painful hammering of his heart against his ribs. His lungs and his chest were two sizes too small, his skin tight and tingling, and as he lifted a hand to shove his hair back, he realized the digits were trembling as if he'd been seized by palsy.

A dream, he told himself as his heart rate slowed marginally, just enough that he no longer feared he was in acute danger of having a coronary. Not a dream; a nightmare. If he was totally honest with himself, he'd have to admit that it was the nightmares that were the last straw during his previous effort to kick the habit too. He vividly remembered waking up slick with sweat and queasy with horror.

4:52, the numbers on his bedside alarm informed him in their digital green glow. Bugger. No way was he going to be able to sleep for the next hour and a half. He would've killed for a cigarette right then, but when Sandra found out she'd kill him, and he had no doubt that she would find out. The woman had some sort of freaky ESP when it came to Gerry and his bad habits.

The thought of Sandra induced a visceral shudder and his chest tightened again. He squeezed his eyes shut automatically and was rewarded with an image of tousled golden hair and blazing blue eyes that instantly had him prying his eyelids wide apart. What the hell?

Right. Sandra had been in his dream. Not all that surprising. The details were fuzzy – scratch that, nonexistent – but if his dreaming mind had decided to conjure some stomach-twisting near-fatal peril, of course it would plop the detective superintendent in the middle of it. It wasn't every Joe off the street with whom you shared experiences like being held at gunpoint, after all.

It could've been worse, he reassured himself as his feet made contact with the chilly hardwood floor and he winced. He pursed his lips and resolutely produced a jaunty whistle to cover his jangling nerves.

He could've been dreaming about Brian.

3.

"Someone's chipper," Jack observed scathingly with his usual early-morning gloom and doom as Gerry entered the office promptly at 8:30, still whistling.

One of Sandra's perfect eyebrows arched as she looked up from the report she was reading, lines of deep suspicion marring her features. "Come here, Gerry," she ordered, interrupting the chorus of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight." For a crazed split second, as her spread fingers came to rest flat on his crisp grey button-down where it covered his sternum, he thought the gov was going to plant one on his freshly-shaven cheek. Instead she leaned in and inhaled, and he was treated to an up-close-and-personal view of her scowl and narrowed eyes. "If you're smoking, I will find out."

"Oi, can't a bloke be in a good mode?"

"It just makes for a change of pace, Pollyanna," Jack retorted drily, looking over his computer monitor, and Sandra spared him a quick smirk.

"Oh ye of little faith," Gerry responded, migrating to that obligatory first stop on his workday journey, the kettle.

"What, did you have a hot date last night?" Brian asked, disgusted, as he and his bicycle joined the party.

"We don't want to hear details," Sandra said brusquely before Gerry could admit there weren't any, and produced a small square of paper. "I tracked down Dawn Wilson. You can ring her and make an appointment, as you're such a ladies' man."

Brian and Jack snickered, and Gerry opened his mouth to say something about how tracking down a three-hundred-pound stripper didn't strike him as a great feat of detective work, but instead he froze for an instant before removing the paper from Sandra's grasp so quickly that he crumpled it and succeeded in giving himself a paper cut. He no longer felt like whistling as he took welcome refuge behind his desk and looked down to hide his suddenly flaming face. What the hell had _that_ been?

Gerry stared sightlessly at his desktop as Sandra and Brian carried on a conversation. The murmur of their voices lapped against his eardrums but Gerry was afraid to look up, afraid to move. The bolt of heat that had raced up his arm before lodging itself in some very interesting places at the simple brush of Sandra's fingertips had left him shocked and embarrassed. Literally shocked: he felt as if she'd zapped him with a cattle prod.

Now his chest was uncomfortably tight again, his palms itching, and he couldn't stop the disjointed images racing through his mind. Yeah, Sandra had definitely been in his dream last night, but it hadn't been a nightmare, not according to the conventional definition of the term. Shit.

Those manicured nails tapped on his desk, startling him so badly that he sloshed scalding hot tea down the front of his shirt, which at least provided a distraction as Sandra icily asked, "Taken up meditation, Gerry? Daylight's burning."

"Shit! – Yeah, yeah, all right," he returned eloquently, dabbing at the mess. Great. Now he felt _and _looked like a prat.

The ribald remarks his colleagues tossed after him bounced around the corridor as Gerry fled half an hour later to keep his appointment with the talented Ms. Wilson. Little did they know that he was supremely relieved to put as much distance as possible between himself and Detective Superintendent Sandra Pullman. He wouldn't go as far as stuffing a hundred-pound note inside that extra-large g-string, but he might go in for a hug and a kiss at a discounted rate.

He had been in Ms. Wilson's presence ("Call me Dawn, sugar") for less than five minutes before he was being forcibly reminded why you should never, ever say, or even think, "At least things can't get worse." Because, in his experience, they'd always find a way to do exactly that.

As if reading his mind, Dawn leaned in, giving Gerry an eyeful of ample cleavage as he sat paralysed on her sofa. "I bet you like full-figured women, don'tcha, darling'?" Her red-varnished nails dug in slightly as her palm came to rest on his knee.

Gerry was not having a good day, and he had only himself to thank. Well, himself and Sandra. This whole anti-smoking campaign was her diabolical progeny. He couldn't blame Dawn, who clearly believed that Gerry had been enslaved by her charms. He knew he was giving her that impression, and he couldn't help it, because as he tried to question her about Laurel Millican's disappearance back in 2003, his mind kept wandering.

Wandering? he thought, and felt his mouth twist into a sneer. The verb was far too gentle. It was as if his brain was chained to an express train, relentlessly jerking him along in its wake. The results had delivered him to the brink of disaster.

Even as Gerry tried desperately to focus on Dawn Wilson's brassy bouffant, he saw smooth, ice-blonde locks, felt them sliding through his fingers and tickling his skin. Dawn's thickly-lined eyes were deep chocolate, but the ones Gerry saw were blue, and instead of Dawn's honeyed southern drawl he heard a familiar voice, husky but clipped, speaking to him in the liquid tones of not-quite-received-pronunciation. What she was saying – Sandra, not Dawn – when his dizzy brain finally managed to process it didn't even make sense: "This is not happening. This never happened. Do you understand?"

Well, hell, of course it wasn't happening, Gerry thought, frowning in confusion. It was a bleedin' fantasy. What did it say about him that even Dream Sandra insisted on informing him that she'd never really have it off with Gerry Standing?

He had to get out of there. His perplexity and the awful, ludicrous situation were doing nothing to dampen his body's enthusiastic response to his little mental peep show. He needed to escape before Dawn Wilson either jumped his bones or filed a harassment suit.

"We'll continue this later," Gerry said, rising abruptly, still strategically holding his jacked at waist-level. The stripper – wait, she preferred 'burlesque entertainer' – gaped at him. He was pretty sure he'd interrupted her in the middle of a sentence, but he was desperate. "I'll, ah – That is, one of my colleagues will be in touch. Th-thank you for your time," he stammered, and bolted for the door.

His hands didn't stop shaking until he was several miles away in the privacy of the Stag. "Bollocks," he swore aloud, removing one hand from the wheel to scrub it over his face. His palm was still unpleasantly clammy. Congratulations, Gerald. You've just achieved a new all-time career low.

As if quitting smoking wasn't already hard enough. The last thing he needed was for other parts of his – uh, life – to decide to be hard as well. His disgusted groan filled the car's interior.

He swallowed enough sleeping tablets to drug a horse before he climbed into his bed that evening, having postponed the inevitable until half one. As his heavy eyelids drifted closed, he said a little prayer, pleading for dreams of a serial killer or a psychopathic clown or, hell, Jack and Brian.

4.

"You look like shit."

"Thanks, mate," Gerry grumbled wryly, accepting the cup of tea Brian automatically handed him.

"Feel like it too, don't you?" Brian's matter-of-fact tone was softened by empathy. "The nightmares have got you again, haven't they? Remember, I've been there."

"You could say that." Gerry certainly wasn't going to say anything else. The reality was exponentially worse than anything Brian could have imagined. The tablets weren't buying Gerry anything but heavy eyelids during the workday, reproaches from his colleagues, and the inability to wake himself from his increasingly vivid dreams. The whole thing looked dead hopeless, and Sandra was pissed at him for his inexplicable refusal to finish interviewing Dawn Wilson. Gerry was sleeping just enough to be tortured by dreams but not enough to feel rested, and he was becoming increasingly edgy and desperate. Something had to give.

"You do look like shit," Sandra chimed in as she strode into the office and peeled off her coat. She eyed Gerry critically. "Dawn Wilson says hello. She told me the two of you really hit it off, so I gave her your mobile number."

Gerry's eyes flared with alarm. "You didn't. Tell me you didn't."

"No, I didn't, but it would serve you right. You've been bloody useless all week."

"There's medication you could take," Jack offered, trailing Sandra. "And patches, chewing gum –"

"I've tried 'em," Gerry responded gruffly in an end-of-story tone.

"Physical activity might help," Sandra suggested calmly, and Gerry strangled on his cheese and pickle sandwich. She looked askance and thumped him on the back, which didn't help.

"Physical activity?" Jack scoffed. "Gerry?"

"Well, you've got to do something," Sandra told him firmly, and Gerry didn't miss the evil twinkle that appeared in her eye. "Hypnosis, maybe. Some people say it really helps."

Jack guffawed, Brian tittered, and Gerry merely scowled. Sandra grinned.

"You should consider it," Brian offered as he stuffed his face with salad. "We already know you're susceptible."

Jack snuck a quick look at Sandra. "The less said about that the better, I think," he put in hastily, and Gerry did his best to look suitably blank. It shut Sandra up, anyway, and she went about removing her own lunch from the refrigerator and placing the plastic containers neatly on the table. Gerry couldn't help watching her. She was precise and methodical. Orderly.

The Sandra in his dreams was methodical, too, unswervingly focused on driving him crazy.

If he thought it would've done any good, Gerry would've gotten down on his knees and begged for the return of the old nightmares. He never bargained for these incredibly vivid dreams about doing very inappropriate things with his guv'nor, each one seemingly more realistic than the last. In his dreams, the heat of her skin, the taste of her sweat, the sound of her low hum, had all become so familiar that Gerry had to keep reminding himself it was all imaginary.

And he'd been so pleased with himself for seeing Frank's projected grand coup at the gala as a shining opportunity to relive what his conscious mind had missed out on all those years ago. It had seemed harmless; what Sandra didn't know couldn't hurt her.

It could hurt Gerry, though. That kiss had to be the root of the present evil. One little taste, and his idiotic dreaming mind had gone raving mad. Sandra would flambé him if she had so much as an inkling of where his mind went when it wandered off. Smoking would be the least of his problems.

"I think the heating's stuck on again," Sandra said abruptly, and stripped her blue jumper over her head, revealing a black sleeveless top that left little to the imagination. "Brian, call maintenance, will you? You've finished your lunch."

She lifted one hand high to smooth her hair and Gerry's gaze zeroed in on the soft inner curve of pale flesh under her arm. His senses were assaulted with a vision of himself running his tongue over that same curve, and he jolted upright in his chair, his loafers smacking against the floor.

"I'm willing to try it."

Her brilliantly blue eyes met his and she blinked. "Have it your way. Gerry, call maintenance – unless you'd like to arm-wrestle him for the privilege, Brian."

"I meant I'll try hypnosis."

Even as he said the words Gerry figured he'd probably lost whatever was left of his mind, but at this point he'd try anything, and it made a certain crazy kind of sense. These dreams about Sandra were bound up in the results of his first experience with being hypnotized. Maybe if he let himself be put under again, the hypnotist could wipe that away, just like taking an eraser to the marker board. He didn't think that was the kind of help most people sought from hypnotists when they wanted to stop smoking, but hell, he wasn't most people. If he didn't manage to obliterate those tortuous dreams soon, there'd be nothing left of Gerry Standing but a little pile of ashes and a few threads of polyester.

_What will happen when Gerry undergoes hypnosis? Will he spontaneously combust and leave his impressive collection of neckwear to the 1970s section of the Museum of the City of London, or will he get himself sorted? Will he finally kick the habit? And when the heck is Rafferty going to come into play again? If you want to know, R&R!_


	2. The Bet

**Chapter Two: The Bet**

"The guv'nor's lookin' for you."

The voice – Brian's – penetrated the fog of Gerry's thoughts and he jumped as if, instead of the northerner's gravelly murmur, a gunshot had gone off by his ear. He flailed, painfully whacking his elbow on the high back of the wooden booth and upsetting the remains of his large scotch in his lap.

"Shit, Brian, look what you've made me do. Don't go creepin' up on people that way, you wally."

Brian eyed him balefully, the blue orbs magnified by his glasses. "Yeah, stealth is my middle name. I thought I might find you here."

"Presumably that's why you looked here, innit?" Gerry groused as his friend slid into the booth opposite him.

"Sandra had Jack check our local two hours ago when you still hadn't come back. I reckoned you might be hidin' out here." The ex-D.I. glanced around the dim interior of the waterside pub which, years after the smoking ban went into effect, still harboured the pervasive odor of stale cigarettes, with an unmistakable undertone of watery dampness.

"I'm not –" Gerry began to protest, but then snapped his mouth shut and shrugged. What was the use? He certainly was hiding out. If he'd known of a suitably remote hermit's cave with decent lager on tap, he would've been cooling his heels there instead.

"Sandra's going to blow a gasket, Gerry," Brian admonished darkly, his thick eyebrows arching together to collide above his nose as he frowned.

"Trust me, I'm doing Sandra a favour by stayin' right here."

"The session with the hypnotist didn't help, then?"

Gerry's smile was a sickly parody of its usual self. "Nothing short of a full frontal lobotomy could help with this, mate."

"I know the withdrawal's murder, but you'll get through it. And if you ever want to talk about it –"

Brian left the statement open-ended, but Gerry didn't respond. There was no way in hell he was discussing this with Brian, or with anyone else. _Especially_ not with the other person it most closely concerned.

Brian patted him on the back and slid out of the booth again. "I'll get you another drink."

Gerry only eyed the tabletop in despair. Just a few hours ago he'd been so hopeful, too. Much to his mortification, Sandra had rung Paula up as soon as he'd agreed to hypnotism, and his daughter had highly recommended someone she'd worked with before. On the bright side, at least this way Gerry was sure the woman was reputable. There would be no repeats of the performance to which he'd been driven at the Magic Circle.

Normally Gerry would've been the last person in London to volunteer himself for what he'd likely have labeled a load of New Age hocus-pocus bollocks, but frankly he was desperate. Even as the other withdrawal symptoms seemed to be subsiding, the dreams had been getting worse – or better, he might've said, if anyone but his governor had the starring role. They weren't even properly dreams any more, since the images assaulted Gerry in broad daylight when he was wide awake. He could be driving down the M4, making Sunday dinner, doing paperwork: it didn't seem to matter. There, all of a sudden, Sandra would be, eyes alight with a sharp-edged liquid heat as she moved over him, under him, her fingernails raking over his flesh in a way that made every hair on his body stand on end.

The scene that occurred most frequently wouldn't even have garnered a restricted rating if it had been a film. At first it had been fuzzy and indistinct, and he'd felt only the heat of kissing her – not tentatively, as he had done at the gala, but with tongues sliding together forcefully and teeth and noses bumping. But it kept getting worse; clearer. Now he could've described the background details as clearly as if he'd been directing the scene. They were always in the entryway of his flat, and Sandra was leaving, not arriving, her long camel-coloured wool coat hanging open when Gerry suddenly grabbed her hand, linking their fingers together, and urged, "Stay."

In the dream – the vision – her expression remained blank for a second, and then his free arm went around her waist, under the coat, his fingers splaying over her spine, and swept her to him. Her eyes were wide open with shock when Gerry covered her mouth with his, and then he saw the glimmer of humour before something darker took over and she kissed him back.

Innumerable times over the last weeks Gerry had been startled back to himself, back to reality, still with the lingering, ghostly feeling of holding Sandra in his arms, her weight warm and solid and so god damn _real_ that it made his chest ache.

So when Jackie, the hypnotist, who had turned out to be a good-humoured, matter-of-fact woman about Gerry's own age, had regarded him with her frank green eyes and said, "So you're here because you could use a bit of assistance kicking the habit," Gerry hadn't hesitated.

"Actually, it's just one particular withdrawal symptom," he'd admitted, running his fingers through his hair, which was a little longer than Jackie's own spiky silver locks. "A dream. I've tried quitting before, so I know how vivid the dreams can be, but this one's drivin' me out of my bleedin' mind. I haven't had a decent night's sleep in weeks."

She nodded. "The nightmares can be a bitch," she agreed in the deep ex-smoker's voice that suggested she knew whereof she spoke.

Gerry fidgeted in his chair. "It's not a nightmare, exactly," he hedged. "More of a – um, an inappropriate dream about a friend. A colleague. Well, my guv'nor, actually."

Jackie, God bless her, didn't smile. "Of a sexual nature?"

"Of a, uh, yeah. Sexual. Yes."

"And obviously this dream is upsetting you, causing you stress and disturbing your working relationship with him."

"Her," Gerry interrupted hastily, and Jackie shrugged, indicating that the gender didn't matter.

"Well, I can't promise, but I think I should be able to help you. Have you had any previous experience with hypnosis?"

After Jackie had led him through a description of that experience, at least as it had been recounted to him, she'd clarified, "So while you were hypnotised, you kissed this woman – the same woman."

"Yeah, exactly. So I figure the two events – the kiss I can't remember, and the dream – have to be related. That's why I thought you could help me," Gerry explained eagerly, not to say desperately.

Jackie pursed her lips. "Gerry – you don't mind if I call you Gerry? – you realise it could be a double-edged sword. Instead of erasing your dream, this may only cause you to remember exactly what happened the last time you were hypnotised."

"Yeah, but see, that would help," Gerry replied confidently. "If I can remember what really happened, maybe my mind will quit coming up with all this ridiculous garbage. I'm ready to try. What do I do, count back from ten?"

Gerry had no idea how much time had passed when he became aware of Jackie's low, calm voice saying, "Open your eyes. – Welcome back, Gerry."

"How'd I do, doc?" he demanded jovially.

She smiled slightly. "It wasn't a test. So her name is Sandra, is it? And Jack and Brian are your other colleagues?"

_Sandra_. Just the mention of her name caused a bolt of heat to arc through him, and Gerry's jaw dropped in dismay. "The dream's still there," he moaned.

"No, it isn't." Jackie held up her hand before he could argue. "Gerry, I do a lot of smoking cessation, pain management, phobia relief. What I don't do is erase memories. I hate to break it to you, but that's science fiction."

Gerry stared at her. "What the hell are you sayin'?" He knew he sounded hostile, but he was past the point of caring.

Jackie remained perfectly calm. "I'm saying you're not having a dream." She paused to sip her green tea, as if this were just any run-of-the-mill session and not the thunderbolt that was going to end life as Gerry Standing knew it. "You're remembering."

"You're remembering," Gerry heard her saying as Brian returned to the table with a scotch rocks and a tall orange juice. "You're remembering."

He glowered. "The hell I am," he snapped aloud, and Brian shot him a questioning look that Gerry waved away.

"Ah, Gerry –"

"Not now, Brian." _Not ever_.

"So I gather that things didn't go well this morning."

_Bugger._

Gerry risked the quickest glance possible at Sandra's set jaw and crystal eyes. "She was a quack."

"Well, I'm sorry to hear that, but I hardly see how it's an excuse to skive off work for the rest of the day." The blonde slid into the booth – next to Brian, thank God – and fixed Gerry with that cool, skeptical look. "Care to explain?"

Gerry sighed heavily as he signaled the bartender, aware that he had no option but to embrace his fate and soothe it with white wine. "Not particularly."

"Too bad. What the hell happened?"

"Nothing." Gerry looked down at the melting ice in his glass. "It didn't work."

Unusually, Sandra said nothing. Gerry felt her eyes on him, appraising. "That's too bad," she finally said, and the note of latent insincerity in her voice had his gaze snapping back up to hers. His own eyes narrowed slightly as he tried to read her unreadable expression. Sandra had been very gung-ho about the hypnosis. After all, she'd brought it up in the first place, and ensured that Gerry had followed through. In the elevator the other day she'd even said something about going with him to his appointment.

"Oi, Sandra, a_ bit_ of privacy!" he'd snapped, blanching with horror, and their eyes had met steadily for longer than a second for the first time since The Dream had begun to torture Gerry.

He still didn't know what Sandra had seen in that long look, but after a moment she'd stepped back and folded her arms. "Yeah, fair play," she'd agreed.

And now that the deed was done and Gerry was claiming that it had been futile, she seemed … relieved? The hair on the back of Gerry's neck stood on end as he sought refuge in his drink. The alcohol burned a trail of fire down to his stomach, which had dropped to some place in the vicinity of his knees.

The thought was so wildly insane that he didn't even want to have it. Jackie, he told himself firmly, _was_ a quack, and when his body had accustomed itself to not having nicotine coursing through it after more than forty-five years of a steady supply, the bizarre, larger-than-life dreams would stop tormenting him as suddenly as they'd started.

There was absolutely no way in hell that the sophisticated, gorgeous blonde sitting opposite, sipping her sauvignon blanc – his friend – his _boss_, for Christ's sake – was thinking she'd dodged a bullet. Jackie was totally wrong: Gerry's dreams might be astonishingly realistic, but he'd always had a good imagination. If Jackie knew Sandra, she'd understand. Wouldn't she?

Okay, Gerry thought to himself. All right. Assume there was an outside chance Sandra would actually have had sex with him. The idea that Gerry could've done that and then _forgotten_ it was sheer lunacy. It simply wasn't possible.

Was it?

He risked a look at his unusually quiet guv'nor and found her studying him seriously, her elbows propped on the table and her chin resting on one cupped palm. That bolt of electric heat zinged down Gerry's spine to lodge slightly south as he focused on her mouth. Her lips quirked and then shaped his name. "Gerry?" The question mark hung in the air.

Oh, shit, he was dying here. The tips of his ears flamed with heat and he _had_ to know. He had to find out.

But how? He couldn't exactly ask. He couldn't stroll into the office and say, "Morning, gov. Tea? Have a pleasant evening last night? By the way, remember a few years ago when that bloke hypnotised me and I acted like a complete twat? Is there any possibility that you dropped by later and we had hot, sweaty, raunchy, amazing sex that I completely forgot about and that you haven't mentioned in three years?"

No, no, no. It didn't happen.

"Mate, are you all right? You look a bit queasy."

Gerry managed a distracted nod in Brian's direction as his whirling thoughts spun dizzily away.

"Gerry?" Concern mingled with suspicion in Sandra's expression. She tilted her head, and Gerry felt as if someone had sucker-punched him because he imagined – remembered? – nipping sharply at the elegant tendon at the side of her neck and hearing her laugh.

_He had to know_. The hopelessness of the whole situation left him feeling defeated, vanquished before he had even begun.

And then, suddenly, inspiration.

_Gerald, old son, you're a __**genius**__. You've still got the magic._

"So, gov," he began, leaning back in the booth and already feeling more like his old self. "I don't suppose you've changed your mind about the smoking ban in light of recent events?"

Her response was a very un-ladylike snort. _Excellent_.

"All right, then. Say I'm a very good boy and mind my p's and q's. What's in it for me?"

Expectedly this time, her eyebrows shot toward her hairline. "The joy and satisfaction that comes from not getting the sack?"

"Naturally. But I could do with a bit of encouragement." He held up one finger before her expression could become totally poisonous. "I propose a bet."

Her eyes shot thunderbolts and Gerry recognised the obvious flaw in his plan as she returned, "You don't gamble."

"Not with money," he agreed hastily, pretty sure Sandra wouldn't be able to resist anything that sounded like a personal challenge.

"Not that I'm entertaining this, but what did you have in mind?"

"If I go one full month from today without smoking, I win, and you have to do whatever I ask. I lose, and vice-versa."

"Gerry, I didn't say you had to stop smoking for some finite period of –"

"I know, I know," he interrupted. "But a month from now will make two months, and that's a kind of victory, innit? C'mon, Sandra. You know you can't resist the opportunity to best me."

He did his best to look pathetic, and it seemed to work. Sandra did like to win, to be top girl. "How would we agree on terms?"

"Wot do you mean, terms?"

Sandra scoffed. "Have you completely lost your mind, Gerry? Or do you just think I'm so stupid that I'd blindly agree to something as vague and terrifying as 'whatever you want'?"

His lip curled with amusement. "I wasn't picturin' whips and chains."

Brian choked on the pulp in his juice and provided alarming ambient strangling noises. Sandra regarded Gerry unflinchingly. "Ah, Gerald, how do you know what _I'm_ thinking, though?"

Gerry was glad he hadn't just taken a drink, or he would've choked too. Instead he managed to say, "Jack and Brian can be the referees."

"Or you could just tell me what it is you want me to do," she pointed out wryly.

"Where's the fun in that?"

She considered. She hadn't exactly agreed, but then she hadn't said no either, so Gerry forged ahead. "Call Jack and get him down here."

Her forehead creased with her sharp frown. "What, now?"

"You think he's got something better on?"

"Work, for instance," Sandra retorted thinly, but she drew her mobile out of her voluminous handbag, and twenty minutes later the last member of their odd little team was shouldering his way toward their table, a pint in his hand and curiosity in his eyes.

As a neutral party, Brian took it upon himself to explain the situation while Gerry and Sandra eyed one another speculatively – or at least, Sandra eyed Gerry through narrowed slits of blue while he whistled "Beyond the Sea."

Jack looked astonished for a split second before he cackled with glee and actually rubbed his palms together. "What are we waiting for, then, chaps? Let's to it. Brian, give us a bit of paper."

"Not out of me notebook," Brian protested in alarm. "I don't like tearin' the leaves out."

"Unless you've got a paper mill in your pocket."

Before the two men could begin squabbling in earnest Gerry cheerfully removed his pint and Brian's juice from their respective coasters and swiped the two cardboard discs. "Here."

He flipped one through the air toward Sandra, who snatched it automatically before raising her eyebrows. "Petty theft, Gerry?"

He grinned. "You gonna nick me?" Without waiting for an answer, he flipped the coaster over and whipped a ballpoint pen from one of his jacket pockets – maybe Brian was rubbing off on him after all these years. He began to write with a flourish, but smacked his palm down over whatever he'd scribbled when he caught Brian craning his neck into his personal space. "Oi, no peeking!"

Brian pursed his lips. "I'm going to see it anyway," he pointed out reasonably, to which Gerry had no good response. He resumed writing, but used his free hand to shield his words from prying eyes.

"Wait!" Sandra exclaimed suddenly, dotting an anxious glance at Gerry's coaster. "We should have ground rules.

"We have ground rules," Gerry retorted with equanimity. "You set 'em."

"That's true, Sandra," Brian put in helpfully. "You said 'anything within reason,' and Jack and I are here to ensure you both comply with the terms."

"But what about duration? I'm not scrubbing Gerry's mingin' toilet for a month," she warned.

"My toilet is spotless," Gerry replied loftily, amused to hear Sandra utter the word "mingin'."

It was Jack's turn to weigh in. "That's fair enough," he contributed. "Gerry –"

"A day," he said immediately.

But Sandra was in a mood to be difficult (as usual, some less charitable observers might have said). "An entire day? Absolutely not. There is no way I –"

"All right, all right. An hour, since your time is so precious," Gerry grumbled.

Sandra looked taken aback by his specificity, even though it was exactly what she'd stipulated for. "An hour," she repeated flatly.

Gerry lounged back in his chair, his coaster safely tucked inside his suit coat. "What, not long enough for you?"

"Oh, no, I'm relieved." She steepled her fingertips together and regarded her nails. "If it were anything _really_ dodgy, you'd only need, what, fifteen minutes, tops?"

Gerry frowned. "Hah-hah. Start writing, Superintendent Smart-Arse, unless you're so certain you'll lose that you just want to forfeit right now."

Sandra didn't even bother calling Gerry on the smart-arse comment, but hunkered over her allocated coaster and, after a brief hesitation, dashed something off. "There," she announced, shoving the result at Jack and offering her competitor a defiant stare.

"All right, then." Gerry handed his masterwork to Brian. "Compare notes, gentlemen of the jury."

Jack's response came straight away. "Fair and square," he said, and handed Sandra's hasty scrawl off to Brian, who read it before handing Gerry's to Jack.

When Brian spoke he sounded tentative. "Ah, mate, I don't know quite how to put this, but you might want to make yours a bit more challenging."

Sandra's scowl could've melted paint. "Thank you, Brian. I'll remember this favour when bonus time comes round."

"Nope," Gerry interjected quietly. "It's fine as it is. I don't care if I get stuck scrubbin' her toilet."

"My toilet is also spotless," Sandra returned coolly, but she looked uneasy. Trust her to get really suspicious because he wanted her to do something that involved neither grueling manual labour nor personal humiliation.

What Gerry had asked wasn't quite as simple as Brian and Jack thought, although only Sandra would realize that – which was exactly why he absolutely_ had_ to win the bet. Come hell or high water, Gerry Standing had smoked his last cigarette.

_Stay tuned for part three. I love to read your reviews!_


	3. Playing Dirty

_Welcome, patient readers, to part three of four, in which Sandra gets desperate, and some patently O.O.C. shenanigans ensue. Relax, it's all in good fun. Also, I had the whole bet planned out before Gerry suddenly fell in love with all things French, so keep that in mind. This is taking place in spring 2011, pre-cooking lessons; assume our favourite Cockney is still francophobic._

**Chapter Three: Playing Dirty**

Sandra was feeling quite cheerful, as evidenced by her tuneless humming of something that could've been meant as anything from the Stones to Coldplay, as she slid behind the wheel of her freshly detailed, sparklingly clean car and gave the dashboard an affectionate pat. "Lookin' good, baby," she complimented the machine. She might ridicule Gerry's exaggerated affection for that old relic he drove, but she, too, was quite fond of her car, especially when it was squeaky clean and envy-inducingly gorgeous, the April sun was shining despite a sharp nip in the air, and Jack had just taken her for a Chinese before dropping her at the mechanic's.

She fitted the key into the ignition and automatically reached down to cradle the gear shift, glancing over toward the passenger seat as she did so. Her gaze was arrested by the blinding glare of the sunlight off something metallic.

Frowning slightly, Sandra picked up the plain, unlabeled CD that had magically appeared next to the cup holder and slid it into the CD player. Maybe one of the employees at the garage had fancied a bit of musical accompaniment whilst he or she was working inside the car.

She jerked back against the leather upholstery when "Baker Street" flooded through the interior at ear-splitting volume. Instinctively she reached out and wrenched the control down to zero. Jesus suffering Christ, the sodding song was stalking her.

Sandra stabbed the eject button with one manicured fingernail and yanked the offending CD from the changer to inspect it. It was still just a plain burned CD, with no helpful title like "World's Worst Pop Songs (Mix)" or "Gerry Wuz Here, Volume I."

_Gerry_. Sandra's eyes narrowed to reptilian slits. The two Gerry's, Rafferty and Standing, had both sullied the interior of her precious car within the past few weeks. Coupled with the Rafferty-related fiasco that had been the police gala, to suggest that this was a coincidence beggared belief.

Behind her an irritated motorist leaned on his horn. Sandra was blocking the exit. Ignoring him, she jerked the key from the ignition and stormed back inside the body shop.

"Excuse me," she demanded of the startled bloke just inside. "Where did you find this CD?" She presented said item with a disgusted flourish.

"CD?" he repeated blankly.

"It was in my car." Sandra jerked her thumb over her shoulder, where the silver convertible was clearly visible beyond the floor-to-ceiling glass, as was the other driver, who was having a come-apart. "That one."

"Oh. Uh. Oh, yeah, I did yours mesel'. It was wedged under the passenger seat, like. Toward the back."

Toward the back, was it? How… illuminating. "Thank you," Sandra said grimly, sounding anything but thankful, and stalked out of the shop as abruptly as she had entered.

Outside she was greeted by a stream of invective from Mr. Jaguar, ending in a threat to call the police unless Sandra removed her car that very instant. She whipped her warrant card from her bag, smacked it against the man's windscreen, and challenged, "Then call them, dickhead," which wasn't the most effective way of resolving the conflict, but her day had just taken a dramatic turn for the worse.

There was only one way that CD could have ended up in Sandra's car. Oh, sure, there were loads of _possibilities_, but only one was actually plausible: Gerry had left it there after the police gala.

Which meant he'd been as hypnotised as she had been during that awards ceremony. The prick had _planned_ the whole disaster, orchestrated it from soup to nuts, and blamed Frank. The double-dealing, slimy, cretinous, polyester-wearing little Cockney shit.

She'd murder him.

She'd drive right over to his flat and make him eat his sodding Gerry Rafferty CD.

Sandra was so enraged that not until she was only a few blocks from Gerry's did an exponentially more horrific thought, one that had her pulling over and pressing her shaking palms together, occur to her. If Gerry had faked being hypnotised this time, who was to say he hadn't faked it the first time round as well?

Prickly heat raced down her spine, and for an alarming fifteen seconds Sandra thought she was going to be violently ill right there in her freshly cleaned and serviced car. Not only had Gerry set the disastrous chain of events at the gala into motion, but he'd suggested their bet as well. Sandra's mind raced. If he'd never been hypnotised at the Magic Circle, he must have suspected that visiting a hypnotist for medicinal purposes would have no effect on him either. He'd just gone along with the idea because it provided him an opportunity to play on Sandra's sympathies. That meant he had to be expecting some big pay-off. _The bet_. Christ, who knew _what_ she might have to do if she lost the bet? Her mind obligingly spewed forth a litany of horrifying prospects. The jokes Gerry and Frank played on each other were notorious and vicious.

She pulled herself up short. Why in the world would Gerry go to so much trouble just to play a nasty joke on her? She wasn't the one who'd given his personal details to .uk. _She_ hadn't interfered with his beloved Stag. She was his bloody guv'nor. She sounded crazy – but then, what Gerry had done at the gala was crazy. He'd set her up, manipulated her, humiliated her – and she'd defended him to Strickland. The thought made her blood reach boiling point.

Totally frustrated, Sandra let loose an infuriated, strangled scream that was ratcheted up several decibels by the enclosed space of the car. The result made her wince as her eardrums shuddered in agony. _Not productive, Pullman_.

"Think," she said aloud. "Think, Sandra. You're an intelligent, rational, _49-year old_ woman. There is a solution to this problem."

There was, and she'd already thought of it: murder Gerry. Never before had the prospect appealed on such a visceral level. But anything remotely satisfying would've been horribly messy, and she could hardly claim self-defence. Even in her state of panicky rage, the thought made her snort.

Temporary insanity, on the other hand…

No, she decided immediately. Her rage was perfectly sane. Plus, since she wasn't big on the idea of shooting him in the back, she'd have to face Gerry to kill him, and the one thing she was certain of was that she did _not_ want to face Gerry just now.

For once in her life, Sandra felt the opposite of confrontational. She'd have liked to find a nice, dark, deep cave to hide in for the next ten to twenty years. A cave with an endless supply of large G and T's and hot cabana boys.

Shit, she was thinking about cabana boys in the midst of this crisis? She needed to get out more. When was the last time she'd gone on a date? Not that she was interested in getting dressed up and making polite conversation. Ripping clothes off and having no conversation was more her speed these days, but she was rather short on likely candidates. Fifty was turning out to sort of suck.

_Forty-nine_, she reminded herself. And there was always Steve down in the lab; she had no doubt he'd be more than willing to help her scratch an itch. He wasn't terrible to look at. Maybe if she gagged him so she wouldn't have to listen to his drivel and handcuffed him to the –

She shook her head to clear it, the razor-cut ends of her hair lashing against her cheeks. Temporary insanity might work after all.

2.

The Detective Superintendent was already in her office Monday morning when she heard the first of the boys arrive. The weekend had given her plenty of time to move from stewing to strategising. In fact, she'd done more than that: phase one of Operation Make Gerry Lose the Bet had already been carried out.

You see, Sandra reasoned thus: if she called off the bet, Gerry would insist on a reason, and that would lead to the very conversation she wanted above all things to avoid. So she simply had to guarantee the outcome. Gerry had to lose the bet, and Sandra had only four days left to make sure that happened.

He had to be punished for having tricked her at the gala – but he had to be punished without knowing why he was being punished or, better still, that he was being punished at all by anything other than his own stupidity. Obviously the situation was delicate and would require some skill in order to be managed properly. Fortunately, Sandra had skills a-plenty.

The first rule of policing had led to Sandra's first step: when you give a villain enough rope, he or she will eventually hang himself. (This led to an amusing visual of Gerry strangled by one of his own hideous, beloved ties.) Gerry had been suspiciously cheerful since he had proposed their bet three weeks earlier, and the withdrawal symptoms he refused to discuss had largely subsided. He'd stopped biting their collective heads off, and his hands no longer trembled – with the exception of that day last week when both he and Sandra had indulged in two double espressos. Some men just couldn't hold their caffeine.

All things considered, and knowing Gerry as she did, Sandra figured there was a high probability Gerry had been sneaking fags on the side – the snake. And if he was smoking – the no-good, lying cheat – it was her business to find him out.

Saturday she had thoroughly searched the office, including all Gerry's "secret" hiding places. She hadn't found anything incriminating, but then she hadn't expected to. Gerry knew her, so he must've known she'd eventually be searching the office. She had, however, nicked his nearly-full bottle of twelve-year-old Glenfiddich, which had worked wonders for her disposition Saturday night.

Gerry, God bless and damn him, was pretty predictable, and one item in his weekly agenda never changed: Sunday night was dinner with The Girls. So Sunday afternoon Sandra had called Emily Driscoll.

Now Sandra snatched up the phone on her desk before it had even finished ringing once. Patience was not one of her many virtues. "Pullman," she announced brusquely.

"Hi, Sandra, it's Emily."

Sandra could hear the murmur of conversation and smell someone's bacon sandwich from the main office, so she lowered her voice as she cut right to the chase. "Find anything?"

"Nope. I think he's really done it this time." Emily sounded justifiably proud, and Sandra could easily picture her friend and mentee beaming as she sat at her rigidly organised desk, probably sorting paperclips.

"Great," Sandra responded, trying to force some fake enthusiasm into her voice. She had told Emily about the bet but not, of course, about her determination to see that Gerry lost. She'd presented the search as doing Gerry a favour in the long-run, making sure he really stopped smoking completely for the good of his health.

Her office door opened unceremoniously, revealing the subject of her conversation. "Gotta go," Sandra said immediately, replacing the receiver and hoping she appeared less shifty than she felt.

Gerry eyed her with his jaw set. He'd been unusually obedient and deferential lately – which Sandra saw as more proof that he was up to something nefarious – but he looked neither obedient nor deferential as he removed his keys from his pocket and dropped them in a jangling heap right in the middle of his governor's desk. "Here," he said flatly.

Sandra pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows.

"Thought I'd make it easy on you," he elaborated with the quiet, dignified anger she rarely heard from him, only when he was truly offended. "You'll want to have a look in the Stag next, then I figure you might go by mine and make sure Emily thoroughly carried out her assignment."

For an instant Sandra felt ashamed and remorseful, which only served to stoke the banked fires of her very justifiable rage. How bloody dare he? After the way he'd lied and manipulated her so spectacularly, he had the unmitigated gall to stomp into her office and act all betrayed and self-righteous? She felt her features tighten into a scowl. "Get real, Gerry."

"That's one of the things I admire most about you, you know: your maturity," he sniped.

"Like you wouldn't do exactly the same thing if the roles were reversed."

"No," he responded in a low voice. "I'd trust you, Sandra."

When he had gone, closing the door behind him, Sandra looked at the keys and slumped in her chair, huffing out a breath of frustration. Maybe Gerry would have trusted her, because she'd never given him any reason not to trust her. The same couldn't be said for him, not after the gala. As for what had happened long before the gala – well, no use crying over milk spilled so long ago that it was curdled by now.

Of course, it was possible, she admitted, that the actual bet wasn't related to Gerry's charming little performance at being hypnotised. And he couldn't have demanded that she do anything overtly dodgy if he won, because Brian would have freaked. She was less sure of Jack; she could imagine him snickering into his sleeve and cheerfully approving something fairly depraved. So maybe Gerry really had just written that she'd have to clean his toilet, perhaps in the costume of a French maid.

No, wait. Gerry hated all things French, hence her side of the bet…

Which she was going to lose, unless she took drastic action.

Sandra sighed despondently, the sound loud in her quiet inner sanctum.

3.

_**Damn**__ it_, Sandra thought at 6:15 Thursday evening. This was a hell of a time for her blasted conscience to assert itself: while she was trapped in Gerry's linen closet with three cartons of his favourite Marlboro reds wedged between her calves.

With less than twenty-four hours to go before the official expiration of her month-long bet with Stand-Up Standing, Sandra was desperate. Gerry was walking around like the spokesperson for a new series of anti-smoking adverts, and she was going to lose. The time was now or never. Do or die.

Well, if she did lose, one of them might well die, but it wasn't going to be her. She wondered idly if the CPS would go easy on her in view of the extenuating circumstances.

Gerry was whistling as he clattered merrily around the kitchen. Shit, she had to get out of here. She was sealing her fate – she was definitely going to lose the bet – but she'd deal with that. She was not, however, going to be caught hiding in a closet, having attempted to sabotage Gerry and wimped out at the last, critical moment. She extracted her mobile from her pocket and scrolled quickly through her contacts.

"Sandra?" Jack questioned uncertainly. "I can barely hear you. Your voice is all muffled."

"I know. Look, I need you to do me a favour and not ask any questions. _Please_. I need you to go over to Gerry's and take him for a drink or dinner. Don't accept no for an answer."

"Er, Sandra, we all just had a –"

"Please, Jack," she hissed desperately. "Right now."

Jack obviously picked up on the desperation because he acceded to her odd request. After hanging up, she glanced at her watch and began a mental countdown. Jack should get there in fifteen minutes, twenty tops. As long as Gerry stayed in the kitchen until then, she'd be home free.

When the doorbell rang, Sandra almost collapsed to her knees in relief before realising she didn't have room. Shelves of neatly folded sheets and towels pressed painfully against her back. She couldn't hear the ensuing conversation, but she picked up the surprise in Gerry's voice. No wonder, since the three boys had adjourned to the put immediately after work, and now Jack was insisting they go for a drink – again.

Jack was persuasive when he needed to be, though, and a few minutes later Sandra heard the front door closing, and then – nothing. Blessed silence. Taking a few seconds to release a pent-up breath, she scrambled out of the closet and dashed into Gerry's bedroom where she began to undo her handiwork, collecting packets of cigarettes she had stashed in every conceivable location. Ten minutes later she was in her car with a mountain of Marlboros riding shotgun. This had been an expensive way to lose a bet.

She just hadn't been able to go through with it. She didn't have the heart, or she had too much heart. It was really too bad she wasn't as big a bitch as everyone thought she was. She'd already reached that decision when Gerry had unexpectedly arrived home at a quarter to six, far earlier than Sandra had anticipated.

It had been a stupid idea, the kind of idea you got when you woke up at 5 a.m. with clammy palms and feet that itched from anxiety. It probably wouldn't have worked anyway, but if it had, Sandra would have won the bet. But really, it was worse than having six pepperoni pizzas and a chocolate layer cake delivered to someone who was religiously attending meetings of Overeaters Anonymous. Planting cigarettes all over Gerry's flat to tempt him into smoking at the eleventh hour – _Really, Pullman?_ she asked herself with disdainful gloom. _That's what you came up with?_

These cut-throat practical joke wars were not her forte.

Fortunately she had only done the master bedroom and bathroom by the time Gerry arrived home, so now he'd never know. That would leave her with some shred of dignity, no matter what she ended up having to do as the official loser.

She'd find out soon enough, now.

No matter how mad she was at Gerry – and she was plenty mad – she couldn't sabotage him like that. If she did and he eventually got something horrible like emphysema, it would be tantamount to killing him, wouldn't it? And blood-soaked fantasies aside, she didn't actually want Gerry to die – the tosser.

She sighed heavily and looked over at her own personal share of stock in the Phillip Morris Corporation. As if losing the bet wasn't bad enough on its own, what the hell was she meant to do with these things _now_?


	4. Winner Takes Some

_And finally, the fourth and final chapter. I hope you enjoy. _

**Chapter Four: Winner Takes Some**

Sandra's hands were shaking like she was in withdrawal when she rang Gerry's doorbell at eight Friday evening, the time he'd appointed for the fulfillment of the bet. Even after she had officially lost, according to Brian's wristwatch, at precisely 2:47 p.m., Gerry had refused to tell her what she had to do, and Brian and Jack had maintained conspiratorial silence. She'd been able to tell that Jack was fiendishly amused, though.

_Bollocks._

When Gerry had said tonight was fine for wrapping up their month-long wager, Sandra hadn't been sure if she was more appalled by the suddenness or relieved to put the whole thing behind her. As she waited for Gerry to answer the door, she definitely didn't feel relieved. In fact, her heart was galloping wildly with nerves.

Gerry had a dish towel slung over one shoulder when he eventually appeared, and as he surveyed his boss his lips quirked in an amused grin. She had changed into well-worn jeans and a plain v-neck grey t-shirt in case she did have to do something messy like clean the toilet with an infant-sized toothbrush. _Oh, please_, she thought. _Let it be the toilet, or scrubbing out all the garbage cans, or snaking the drains_.

Delicious smells spilled out into the hallway around Gerry, and Sandra couldn't help sniffing the air. "What are you making?" she asked, wondering if she'd played right into his hands. Maybe he'd planned to torture her by making her watch him eat one of his amazing meals while he forced her to partake of Lean Cuisine or canned chili or, oh God, tripe. "It smells great," she added, and could've slapped herself for the wistfulness that had crept into her voice.

"Beef bourguignon, according to Julia Child's recipe," he replied cheerfully. "Not original, but effective."

"Effective how?" she demanded sharply, confused, as she stepped around Gerry into the flat.

"Effectively French. Brian and Jack told me that was what I had to do if I'd lost the bet – make you a French dinner with all the trimmings."

Her lips twisted into a tight frown. "But I lost."

"So? We've got to eat, right? Is there any reason we can't both win?"

"Yeah," she muttered ungraciously, "there is. It was a bet. There's a winner and a loser."

"Have a seat," he invited unfazed, gesturing toward the dining table, which was already set for two and looked like a double-page spread in _French Country Living_. "It's just cooling, so we can eat in a few minutes. Here," he finished, handing her one of the two glasses of wine that have been breathing on the counter.

Sandra felt like she had just plunged through the rabbit hole. If Gerry was buttering her up this diligently, what was to come had to be _bad_.

"You reek, by the way," he interrupted her thoughts as he dished up the rich, savory stew. "Everyone's been right all these years: the smell really is disgusting."

Sandra felt herself flushing but said nothing. The rest of the Glenfiddich and several packs of the cigarettes had kept her company last night, and not even showering and shampooing her hair had completely dispelled the stench. She watched while Gerry brought the bowls of stew and a hot, crusty baguette to the table. She didn't have to ask whether or not it was homemade.

Before sitting down opposite her, he returned to the kitchen and retrieved something that he placed beside her bowl. "Here," he said, obviously amused. "I think these belong to you."

Sandra stared at the pack of cigarettes and knew perfectly well that her face had turned blood red. "I wondered what was up when Jack showed up here last night." He clucked his tongue against his teeth. "Bad girl, gov. Were you that set on winning?"

"Yes," she choked out, mortified and furious. She would've liked to lob the bowl of stew at Gerry's balding head, but if she gave into the urge he'd go to the office and tell Jack and Brian that she'd welshed.

Gerry held his spoon poised in the air. "Why?" he asked simply, curious. "You've been naggin' me to quit since we met. I'd've thought you'd be my number one cheerleader."

Sandra couldn't think about eating, because she was already choking on a cocktail of humiliation, remorse, and anger. "I'm glad you quit," she managed to sputter, and gulped her ice water, which only made her cough.

When Gerry didn't pursue his line of questioning but instead said, "Eat your dinner before it gets cold," Sandra's blood ran colder than the dinner could possibly get. This was going to be even worse than she feared; she felt it in her bones.

Defiantly she pushed her bowl away. "Just tell me," she demanded through gritted teeth.

Gerry honestly looked confused. "Tell you what?"

"What I have to do. Just tell me and let's get it over so I can go home."

Gerry stared. "You're nervous."

"I am not," she snapped.

"You're as jumpy as a cat," he retorted, grinning. "Why are you so nervous?"

"I'm not nervous," she practically shrieked, and he merely raised his eyebrows.

"Coulda fooled me."

Sandra gripped her spoon in the hope that it would help her get a grip mentally as well. She had to wrest back control of his situation. She was the governor, for crying out loud. "What do you want?"

Gerry looked at her for a long time before he answered, and something in his tone had Sandra fighting the urge to squirm uncomfortably in her chair when he finally did. "It's simple enough," he said, but he no longer sounded so calm either. He reached into his pocket and placed something between them on the table.

Sandra recognised the coaster immediately and refused to let her hand shake as she picked it up to read, Sandra will tell me exactly what happened when I was hypnotised.

She lifted flaming eyes to his face. She must've looked scary because Gerry actually leaned away from the table. "Which time?" she returned in a voice so low and furious that she barely recognised it as hers.

"The – the first time," he stuttered. "With that bloke at the Magic Circle."

She folded her arms, feeling more confident as Gerry became more unsure. He deserved to squirm for a while. "Oh, I think you mean 'the only time,' don't you?"

His crestfallen expression gave him away immediately, but he tried to bluff her, mumbling, "I don't know what you mean."

"Hell yes, you do." Sandra marched over to her handbag as she spoke. "Since we're restoring one another's lost property tonight I have something of yours too." She slapped the CD, now horribly scratched from its tenure in her bag, down beside his wine glass. "You left it in my car after the gala."

Gerry's face was ashen as he looked from the CD to Sandra, who stood over him with her fists planted on her hips, her whole body practically vibrating with rage.

She was terrifying. And amazing. And devastatingly sexy.

"It isn't mine."

She only stared, disgusted and incredulous.

"It's Frank's," he continued.

"And Frank broke into my car and left it there, did he?"

"No, of course not. I left it there, only I didn't realise it. Let me explain – and sit down, would you? Quit loomin' over me."

"I will not," she returned with icy dignity.

"All right." Gerry stood so they were eye to eye across the table and drank a mouthful of his wine before going on. "You found this and now you think I planned everything that happened that night, yeah?"

"You _did_," she raged.

"I didn't. If you'll shut up for thirty seconds, I'll explain."

Sandra's face washed from florid to pallid and back, but she clamped her lips together.

"Look, Eddie Senior and I go way back, right? So when that damn song came on for the second time, I went over to ask his boy if Patterson was up to something. I knew he'd tell me, and he did. So I thought, well –"

"You thought, well, why not beat Frank at his own game and publicly humiliate Sandra into the bargain?"

"Of course not!" he exclaimed, exasperated. "Well, the bit about Patterson, yeah. But I never meant to embarrass you."

She snorted derisively, telling him eloquently just what she thought of his version of events.

"Come on, Sandra." His hands came to rest on his hips, his stance unconsciously mirroring hers. "You honestly think I planned to get my new bespoke suit covered in that sodding red cake and cream cheese frosting?"

"No, I suppose that was probably just – well, the icing on the cake," she conceded bitterly. "But you certainly planned the – the other part."

She was so rattled that it would've been cute if Gerry didn't think it made her so likely to plunge a steak knife into his heart. "Yeah," Gerry admitted softly, meeting her eyes. "I did. And I'm sorry for Strickland and all that."

She stared back, and when she finally spoke she sounded deflated. "Why?" she asked wonderingly, her own voice much quieter. "Why would you do that to me, Gerry, after all these years?"

His shoulders rose and fell as he took a deep breath. "I wanted to kiss you."

Her bark of laughter was humourless. "So that's the famous Standing technique, is it? Pretend to be bloody hypnotised? Jesus Christ, Gerry." She shook her head. "You're – this is seriously disturbing. I mean, you – you have a problem of some sort. I think we may need to reevaluate your position in UCOS."

Gerry didn't look particularly fazed as she tried to slip back into professional mode. "I have a problem," he clarified. "Because I wanted to kiss you?"

"Yes!" she exclaimed, and then frowned as she realised how that sounded. "No! I mean no sane person would go to those lengths."

"Maybe not." As she stared at him, bug-eyed, he continued with all the dignity he could muster. "It's not as if I planned it in advance, spent weeks plotting and schemin'. But thee was Patterson with his ridiculous joke, and – and you looked so gorgeous in that dress –"

She seemed to soften for a split second, and then she flinched. "You're so full of shit."

He glared at her. "I'm tot'lly humiliating myself here, layin' myself open so you can stomp on me, and you think I'm makin' it up?"

"Yes," she retorted hotly. "Because if you were telling the truth about being hypnotised before, at the Magic Circle, you'd have had no reason to make this bet. You obviously know exactly what happened then, because you bloody recreated it! Were you ever actually hypnotised, Gerry, or did you fake that too?"

"Of course I was." He took a few steps toward her and then stopped with the table still partially between them, perhaps for protection. "I know what happened at the Magic Circle because Jack finally told me a few months ago. That's how Frank knows too; he was at the pub. But knowing what happened isn't the same as being able to remember it."

"I don't believe you," she insisted, her lips compressing themselves into a grim white line. "Having me tell you what happened wouldn't make you remember any more than hearing Jack's version would – and besides, why would you even _want_ to remember it?"

He looked at her like she'd just said the stupidest thing he had ever heard. "Because it was you, Sandra," he said, almost smiling. "Do you have any idea what it's like to be told you kissed Sandra Pullman on the mouth in front of witnesses, and have no bloody memory of it at all? No, I suppose you don't," he answered himself.

"You could've just asked me! You didn't have to ambush me in front of Strickland and half the shitting Met!"

"Oh, sure. I could've asked, and you would've said what? 'Sure, Gerry, I'll pencil you in for tonsil hockey right after my 10:30 with the assistant commissioner'? Give me a break," he sniffed.

Sandra thought she was on the verge of getting a little hysterical, because she felt wild laughter rising up in her chest. She took a healthy swig of wine to tamp it down. This whole conversation was insane. She should never have forced Gerry to give up smoking, because the lack of nicotine has warped his brain.

"You kissed me back."

Her face flamed, but she rolled her eyes. "I didn't want to punch you in the face and bottle the entire evening, unlike _some_ people. That does not count as kissing you back, just because I didn't do you grievous bodily harm!"

"Really? Because I don't think Strickers would've gone ballistic if you hadn't used your tongue."

"Strickland did _not_ see that!" she exclaimed, and then turned the colour of an over-ripe tomato because she had just admitted having her tongue in Gerry Standing's mouth. Gerry had the nerve to grin.

The best defence is a good offence, so Sandra returned her hands to her hips and groused, "This bet was idiotic. You already know everything that happened when you were hypnotised. So can I go home now?"

"You haven't eaten your dinner."

"I'm not hungry." Of course Sandra's stomach chose that precise instant to rumble loudly, and she mentally cursed the day she was born.

"Well, I am, and I don't feel like eating alone. Sit down and keep me company. It's better than scrubbin' the toilet."

"I'm not so sure about that," she muttered, but she sat and took another generous drink of the wine.

Maybe, Gerry thought, he shouldn't press his luck. Sandra had admitted to having participated in their spectacularly ill-timed kiss, and had – perhaps unintentionally – given him permission to ask to kiss her again. He would most certainly avail himself of that permission. She'd say no a few hundred times, but he could be incredibly persistent. He should stop while he was ahead; he knew that was the wise decision.

Gerry was not wise. No one had ever even accused him of being wise. And he still had no idea about what he was dying to know, and he had suffered for the right to ask. He hadn't had a single cigarette in two bleedin' months.

"Sandra, do you believe I was hypnotised that day at the Magic Circle?"

She hesitated, but met his eyes when she chose to answer. "Yeah, Gerry. I suppose I do."

"So the thing is – that's not exactly what the bet was about. I mean, it's not exactly what I want – what I need," he rephrased, "to know."

"Too bad, because that's what you wrote."

"No. Read it again."

"Sandra will tell me exactly what happened after I was hypnotised at the Magic Circle," she read aloud, and then shrugged. "I don't get it. You already know."

Gerry was fully aware that he was on the verge of total ego annihilation if his fevered dreams were just that. But the fact that Sandra was no longer meeting his eyes gave him the courage to go all in. "After," he stressed. "After the Magic Circle. Not at."

He watched her jaw tighten and her throat bob as she swallowed, but her voice was steady. "You went home."

"How'd I get there?"

She darted a quick glance at him before returning to being fascinated by her cold stew. "We drove you. You were still sort of… loopy."

"We?"

"Me. I did." She glared at him suddenly. "Gee, Gerry, this is scintillating. I can see why you'd be so eager to know the details."

If he was wrong, he'd never hear the end of it. If he was right, Sandra might never speak to him again. But he had to know. He leaned toward her. "The thing is, Sandra, I've been having these dreams. Really vivid dreams. I've been having trouble sleeping, having trouble functioning at work. That's why I agreed to see Jackie."

"The hypnotist," she said tonelessly.

"Right. I thought she could help me get rid of them. But she made it worse: she told me they're not dreams, they're memories. And they won't go away, no matter how hard I try, so maybe she was right."

Sandra was still staring at her stew, her posture rigid, but her voice was still steady. "What are they about?"

"You."

She couldn't hide her flinch.

"You and me," he elaborated, although his mouth was so dry he could barely speak. "It starts with me kissing you – there." He indicated the entryway. "Your hair is longer, and you've got on a red sweater and that camel-coloured wool coat. Do you still have that coat?"

"No," she whispered.

"But that's not how it ends, not in the dreams."

She said nothing. She had bowed her head so low that he could no longer see her eyes at all.

Gerry's heart was in his mouth – he finally got what that hackneyed phrase meant. "How did it end, Sandra?" he managed, his voice actually shaking.

She lifted her head very slightly, and Gerry was stunned by the sheen of moisture in her bright eyes. "Like in your dreams, probably."

He could only stare.

"I didn't know you wouldn't remember," she muttered. "I didn't think – well, I didn't think at all. But then when I realised you didn't, it felt like… like a gift. Like I'd done something really horrible and gotten away with it."

He winced. "It was horrible?"

She surprised both of them by laughing. "No, Gerry." As she met his eyes she allowed herself the ghost of a smile. "Not at all."

"That's a relief, at least," he said as lightly as he could, still trying to comprehend what his guv'nor had just told him. "You… never said anything in all this time."

Again she snorted. "Oh, yeah, I can just imagine that conversation. 'Gerry, go down to the evidence room and see what the hold-up is, and by the way, I just thought you should know we had sex while you were bloody hypnotised.'" She let loose with a strangled, desperate laugh.

"Why?" He didn't know he was going to ask the question until he heard it. "Why did you – uh –"

"Timing," she said softly. "I'd just had a break-up that got a bit ugly, and then you kissed me and, I don't know, I was curious."

"Curious," he echoed glumly.

"Well, you have quite the reputation." He looked up and she offered him a gentle, teasing smile. "I, um – I was so afraid for you to find out, but now what you have, I feel like I owe you an apology. I almost feel like I unintentionally took advantage of you."

Gerry couldn't help it. He shouted with laughter. "Shit, Sandra, you can take advantage of me any time you like."

After a moment she joined him, and something in her stomach unclenched. "Are we okay?" she asked.

His hand covered hers briefly. "We're more than okay. – Give me your bowl and let me reheat this. I'll be offended if my fancy French cooking goes to waste."

She helped him bring everything back into the kitchen and leaned against the counter, sipping her wine, while he stirred everything together again and slowly increased the heat. She knew there might be awkward moments down the line, but at the moment she was almost giddy with relief to have this out in the open.

"Hey, Gerry?" When he looked up at her she lifted her glass to him. "I'm glad you won the bet. I'm really proud of you."

He grinned. "Thanks, gov." After a moment he looked over his shoulder again, evidently emboldened by her praise. "Hey, Sandra? Remember how you said I should've just asked to kiss you? I'm asking."

He thought she'd take it as a joke, even though he was nothing but serious about his desire to get his lips on hers again, but she surprised him, considering carefully before answering.

"All right," she said almost shyly, putting her glass down.

"All right," he repeated disbelievingly, and then Sandra was right there wrapping her arms around him and offering her mouth to him with disarming simplicity.

He brushed his lips back and forth across hers, learning the shape and the texture. His hands framed her face. "Kiss me back," he urged. "Like you did before."

She did, and several minutes passed before either of them said anything else.

"Hey," she murmured, "that's a lot better when you're fully conscious."

"And Strickland's not watching."

She chuckled warmly, and the sound made Gerry's toes curl. "You remember asking me earlier what I wanted?" he whispered against her smooth hair. "You already know. I want you."

She was quiet and still for a long moment before she pressed her lips to his jaw and then met his gaze. There was a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. "Good thing I'm right here."

He kissed her again, enthusiastically, and then broke away to groan. "I can't believe I don't remember. That is so unfair," he said despairingly, and Sandra started laughing again.

"I suppose we could make some new memories."

"Really?"

He sounded so eager that she laughed harder. "There's no time like the present," she suggested coyly, and Gerry thought his heart was going to stop.

Then he stunned them both. "No. Not tonight. No way am I giving you grounds to say you slept with me because you lost a bet."

Her peal of laughter thrilled Gerry even as he asked himself what the hell was wrong with him. Here was the woman of his dreams, literally, suggesting they remove their clothing and spend some time sharing body heat, and he was turning her down?

"Well, when you put it that way," she agreed, moving away to pick up her wine.

"Here." Gerry refilled her bowl and handed it over. "Eat your sodding dinner. It's the last French food you'll get outta me."

"Bon, bon, Gerard," she teased, diving in with her spoon, and Gerry's heart did a stupid, happy little flip.

"Is that offer still open?" he asked impulsively.

"Nope." Sandra neatly wiped her lips with the napkin and returned it to her lap. "You're right. Not tonight."

"Tomorrow?"

She laughed again. He loved to make her laugh, even at his expense. "No. I think we should wait a while."

"How long is a while?" he demanded tragically, and she smirked.

"Hmm, let's see. It seems to me you've done pretty well for yourself, for only having been off the fags for two months. We should make it a milestone. Say, when you hit the six-month mark."

He gaped at her in consternation. "Six months? But that's four whole months from now."

She snickered. "We've already waited four years since the first time. I don't think a few more months will kill either one of us."

She had a point, and besides, the way her eyes softened when he lifted her hand and kissed her palm already made him feel just a few degrees away from being an immortal sex god.

Before he returned to his dinner, Gerry took a few seconds to send a thank-you to the late, great Gerry Rafferty. Who would ever have suspected that quitting smoking would turn out to be the most fun Gerry Standing had ever had?


End file.
